


I'm a Fool for You

by IngeniumNoctuam



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:25:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9354125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IngeniumNoctuam/pseuds/IngeniumNoctuam
Summary: Philip is new and Lukas is too, in a sense, to all of this. So Lukas pretends he doesn't care that the new kid has beautiful almond eyes and Philip isn't fooled, not for an instant.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A "how Lukas and Philip met" type story with a little tension because Lukas is oblivious and Philip isn't

Your love is like a studded leather headlock  
Your kiss, it could put creases in the rain  
You're rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock  
And those other girls are just Postmix lemonade

Suck it and see, you never know  
Sit next to me before I go  
Jigsaw women with horror movie shoes  
Be cruel to me 'cause I'm a fool for you

_Suck it and See ~ Arctic Monkeys_

—

The uncertainty of it all lays not in Philip's cold, calloused hands but in the sweaty, greased up palms of a bleach blonde kid called Lukas. Lukas with the devilment of some old relative twisting away in his eyes as he looks at Philip and tries to pretend he isn't. He's bad at the pretending. 

Philip attempts to concentrate on the gravy puddling by his mashed potatoes and the blue orange backpack that would look good propped up next to the elm tree outside if he could convince the boy who has it to give it to him. He is not, no definitely not, stabbing at the styrofoam of his tray as Lukas places his chin in his hand and stares, with some great grandeur that looks lopsided and forced, directly at Philip. 

Lukas, the kid with the helmet tucked under his elbow like a third arm, can't fool anyone. Philip isn't fooled. Not for an instant. 

—

The heater's broken in the computer lab, though it seems like everything here breaks down eventually. Probably why there's so much dust hanging around the stoops of buildings, lost, looking for even the faintest of memories, looking for the blank, unmoved faces to shift that way they do when something hits them close and they find themselves nearing foggy recollection. The dust remains, however, trapped in an infinite waiting, and the people do too. 

The heater's broken and Philip shivers and his cold fingers articulate words with rigid movements and stutters on the keyboard. Lukas, two seats down, has his eyes on his own reflection and his fingers tucked away in his pockets as he leans back in the dark and pretends to want to be anywhere else. 

Philip smirks at him, tugs his jacket close. The cold bites him and Lukas, with his eyes and the pull of his mouth, does the same. 

Make up your mind, Philip thinks. Lukas stares at his screen and pretends he doesn't want to look to his right, two seats down. Philip isn't fooled.

—

It's an act of rebellion. A mutiny so scandalous it shakes the town's wooden foundations, carved with blades and settled with stakes in the chests of those who were vile hearted and different. 

The more Philip brushes close, causes faultlines and tremors, the more he bares his leather jacket to the teeth of his opponent, his lover, his friend, his no one of the above, the more radical the action. The brush of one body to another sticks pins down your throats and expects you to swallow. It takes no prisoners. But if you're lucky you might be its next victim, you might find yourself trapped, you might squirm in the space between one shoulder and the next, you might pull at the roots of all that is for the hidden underground. And as Philip sends an elbow out, let's it nudge the ribs of his 'none of the above', his partner in the most primitive of crimes, he knows he's been taken. 

Lukas started it on a Tuesday when the colors grey and blue were trying to force their way down the backs of your eyes and the clouds hung unwanted as everyone shuffled and pretended this wasn't going to be the marked passage of their life, the logged edges of nothing to riddle their tombstones. Lukas had held his breath and plunged in, pushing his body hard into Philip's shoulder. And they had become the newest victims. 

Now, Philip holds the strap of his bag and looks into the blue eyes, larger than quarters, deep enough to wade through, as Lukas brushes past his shoulder and pretends not to notice the smirk unfolding on Philip's face. Philip isn't fooled.

—

The events occur in the order they do, sloppy but forward, relentless and the same. Philip notices the greys and blues blur together when you don't look too hard. He notices time can pass if he looks at his watch long enough and asks for more of the day before to bring him into tomorrow.

The only thing that doesn't blur around the edges like a window in rain is Lukas, the dredges of sunshine on a rainy day, quick fading, an illusion of the deranged and lonely mind as Lukas rounds his mouth around the word 'hey' and then slaps it closed with regret, except he's smiling so maybe the regret isn't burning away their tangled connection. Lukas, the kid with the smile that wanders his way, unique in its design, a sleek automobile of perfection and craftsmanship. Lukas has a glare crafted the same, for him, reflecting the dogged sun, meant to hurt his eyes. It horrors his inner person but Philip swallows the sharp pains until his stomach hurts. Lukas pretends to mean the words he speaks as they tumble out. Philip isn't fooled.

—

He rustles Lukas' shirt with his arm as those eyes with the ancestral greed for the unspoken take his pouts and perturbed shoulders into their grasp. They glance at each other and pretend they have something in common to make themselves feel better for the winding cord of iron pulling them close. Lukas' eyes find the set of his jaw, the patches on his elbows, the thin scar on his hand. Each day, greying like hair and aging so little one could confuse it for the last, the pattern reverberates and repeats.

Philip returns the stares. Lukas pretends not to notice they are making a habit of locking eyes and crossing paths. Philip isn't fooled.

—

Their first not so much conversation is a false start that leaves Philip's head empty. It stands to reason the uncertainty would bungle up and pop, but with a whimper of shame that was coaxed out by the dribbling small talk, that was unexpected. Lukas had looked frightened of his own tongue, betraying him with words to a stranger that should be more eloquent because he doesn't care, he shouldn't care. If he doesn't care then Philip won't be any realer to him than the watery edges of his mother's memory and their game will be the imaginary kind children play when they don't know anything about the jagged pinpoints of social contracts. Philip sees the fear in Lukas' eyes, the dust that will not settle, when they pocket the conversation and keep the details for no one else. 

Lukas stutters next time they bump shoulders. He pretends he hasn't made a mess of the wire thin cords holding them in their orbits, away but together. Philip isn't fooled.

—

The rumors swirl around him like snow waiting to fall and still Lukas doesn't give him the worn look of pity that is passed between all the people that pretend to care, has been since humans learned to suffer, and more importantly how to shackle the burden to someone else. 

The dirty grime that won't wipe off his face, a mother with needles for veins, and two new parents whose faces he still couldn't recall, don't stop the upward climb of Lukas' smile and the second failed attempt at a conversation. 

Sometimes Lukas pretends to borrow the look, when his head his held under the social guillotine and he's not meant to be teasing and brash and knife sharp. Philip isn't fooled.

—

Philip asks for a pencil and Lukas gives it to him and that is their first conversation that doesn't end in Lukas gasping for a coherent sentence.

Lukas pretends he doesn't know it happened. He sits with an extra slump to his shoulders, doodling in the margins of his notebook until even the teacher notices the vibrating anger huddling in the jagged lines of his chicken scratch. He's got that look like he's pissed and he doesn't want to sit next to the freaky new kid. 

Philip isn't fooled. 

—

They find themselves together in the swallowing heat of mid April, in the dandelions and doldrums of the abandoned lot behind the school. They kick pebbles and Philip accidentally gets caught in the winding, pushing smoke that billows from inside Lukas and that brooding thing which could so easily catch any boy, any boy he wanted. 

Philip looks at him like he's the problem when really he's the red in the blue, the bright in the grey, when he's been the everything that has kept his feet on the cracked asphalt and stopped him from trying his luck in the forest. 

Their small talk, feeble and a cover, both know, is dragged down by the heavy rays of the sun; both hear the tittering of the 'maybes' behind each word and every generic sentiment as their words slow and slur and it gets hard to stop the tipping between them. 

Lukas pretends he doesn't know the maelstrom of unspoken and unwanted things below the surface of their fracturing ice. Philip isn't fooled. 

—

The rich unease of their positions, Philip back to the tree, Lukas with his hands around his helmet, it clusters, striving to break the awkward silence.

"So you like motocross?" Lukas asks.

"Sure," Philip says. 

"I could use some good footage. My girlfriend..."

They both lurch. Girlfriends fit more above their heads, in the abstract of their combined conscious, than between the invisible bruises of their elbows and forearms that have been collecting since Lukas gathered all the fire not doused by the ash of the small town and dared take a small part of what could be his, and then after the resulting head on collision of their three weeks of foreplay. 

"I can film you, sure. Now?"

"Oh, yeah. Or whenever."

"Whenever," Philip repeats.

"Cool. Yeah. Cool, dude," he says, a rush of promises he's been trying to keep, breaking. 

Lukas pretends he's staring at the deep brown chestnut of the elm tree behind them and not getting slowly, slowly conquered by the deep brown of Philip's eyes. Philip isn't fooled. Not for an instant.


End file.
